More new Arcade Fire tunes surface: Excited yet?

Arcade Fire‘s The Suburbs is a mere seven weeks from arrival. Can you believe it? You ought to, now that two more songs from the album that was once just a shadowy rumor have appeared online.

Reports have pegged “Ready to Start” as Arcade Fire’s next single, though band reps’ lips remain sealed. It certainly sounds like a strong contender. Some arresting imagery in this one: “Businessmen drink my blood,” Win Butler sighs in Robert Smithly tones. (True Blood music supervisors, are you listening?) Behind him, the band broods and builds, then fades in a sudden way that keeps making me want to hit “play” again ASAP.

“We Used to Wait,” which BBC DJ Zane Lowe premiered across the pond, opens on a brighter note, with plinking pianos and crisp drums that wouldn’t be out of place on, oh, a Hall and Oates song. A nervous edge that’s more typically Arcade Fire creeps in as Butler begins to sing. “I hope that something pure can last,” he repeats, sounding unsure of himself.

Both songs feel thematically and musically linked to the double-A-side single that Arcade Fire surprised us with last month. Taken together, the four tunes we’ve now heard have me more psyched than ever for The Suburbs‘s Aug. 3 arrival. How about you?